1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a laundry system, and in particular, this invention is concerned with a laundry system utilizing portable communication tools such as mobile phones, portable telephones, cellular phones, PHS (personal handy-phone system), mobile communication terminals, and so on.
2. Description of Related Art
Nowadays, coin laundries are wide spread and used by many people as facilities in which washing can be done conveniently. Generally, unmanned operation is adopted in the coin laundries so that one can do the laundry on a so-called self-service basis any time in 24 hours.
As is obvious from its name, washing machines and dryers in a coin laundry are made operable by putting in coins and bills (bank notes). Accordingly, a managing unit for accepting coins (and bills) is installed or incorporated in each of the washing machines and dryers.
Being operated unmanned and for 24 hours, the coin laundries have the convenience of allowing anyone to use them freely. On the other hand, they sometimes suffer from damages due to robbery, in which the coins and bills collected inside the managing units are forcibly taken out during time zones such as midnight and early morning when there are few users. In many of such events, coins and bills are taken not only by breaking the managing units so as to take the coins and bills collected inside, but also by destroying the bodies of the washing machines and dryers together with the managing units. Accordingly, the equipment damage amounts to a huge loss in the current circumstances.
Meanwhile, the coin laundries are robbed of the coins and bills with their equipment being destroyed because there are coins and bills collecting inside the equipment (managing unit). Accordingly, it is possible to assume that if there are no coins or bills inside the equipment of a coin laundry, it will never be robbed of coins and bills and its equipment will never be broken.
Recently, there are also stores having vending machines installed in addition to the laundry machines. It is also possible to think of manned stores capable of functioning as so-called convenience stores in which articles of daily use are displayed besides the laundry machines.
However, in either case, that is, in the case of unmanned stores provided with laundry machines together with vending machines or in the case of manned stores functioning as convenience stores, the existence of a large amount of money in the stores (laundries) is not favorable in terms of prevention of stealing and robbery.
The present invention arises from such a background mentioned above, and therefore it is an object of this invention to provide a laundry system (because of the no use of coins, this system cannot be called a “coin laundry” in a precise sense, and accordingly, this system is hereinafter simply referred to as the “laundry system”) usable without coins or bills.
This invention, of course, does not provide a laundry system of free-of-charge, but intends to provide a laundry system which allows for what is called cashless use in which instead of using coins or bills for the charges as in the known systems, portable communication tools such as mobile phones, portable telephones, cellular phones, PHS and mobile communication terminals are used.
In addition, another object of this invention is to provide a system that allows, besides cashless use of laundry machines, cashless purchasing of products from vending machines installed in the stores or articles of daily use displayed in the stores by means of portable communication tools.